5 Bad Habits That Are Hindering Your Weight Loss Success

Work can be stressful and challenging all in its own right. Now add to those stresses and challenges the fact that many bad habits at work could be costing you weight loss success and you might really start to think. Fortunately, all these bad habits can be addressed and remedied, which all comes with knowing what they are first.

Eating Too Little

Though it sounds like it would be the opposite, not eating enough food can lead to weight gain. Unfortunately, many who are busy with work don’t take the time to eat the appropriate amount of food. If this describes you, then a change must be made.

When you eat too little your body kicks in to survival mode. As far as it is concerned you are trying to starve it so it will slow your metabolism down and even store fat. This makes it increasingly harder to lose weight and easy to gain weight when you are off of work and eating normal.

Instead of starving yourself, eat. Start the day with a healthy breakfast and then take healthy snacks with you to work. Ideally, you should eat something every three to four hours, but the key is to eat and just be sure you are eating healthy.

Ordering Out

Many work places make it a habit to have one person designated to taking everyone’s lunch order and then calling in that order, picking up, and finally distributing the orders accordingly. If this happens where you work, ask yourself what you typically order.

Most of the time the answer will be a meal that is loaded with fat and calories. Even if the rest of your day consists of you eating right, that one meal might cost you too many calories and will likely put you over on your fats. With a bad habit like this, you can’t expect to lose weight.

Instead of ordering out, try brown bagging it. Bring your own lunch and make sure that lunch is a balanced meal that fits within your actual diet plan. If you must eat out with the rest of your co-workers, go for a leafy salad with light dressing and skip the cheeseburger and fries.

Skipping Breakfast

Skipping breakfast is easy to do when you are trying to rush to get to work. However, it is one of the worst things you can do to your body when you are trying to lose weight. Breakfast sets the day, and your metabolism, in motion. If you skip breakfast your body will again slow your metabolism down to compensate for the lack of calories it has to fuel itself.

The problem is that your body will not turn off your hunger pangs. So, you will be far more likely to grab a donut from the break room or a candy bar from the vending machine. So, instead of fueling your body the right way with a healthy breakfast that will help speed up your metabolism, you will be eating junk with a body that has already slowed your metabolism down. That equates to weight gain.

Make time for breakfast. If you absolutely can’t, then you should grab a bag of non-sugary organic trail mix or better still a banana and eat it on the go or right when you get to work. The point is to get something in your stomach that is not junk.

Stuck to Your Chair

Think about how much you sit in a typical day. You drive to work sitting down. You sit at your desk. You sit in meetings. You sit while you eat lunch. You sit back at your desk. You sit in your car on the way back home. You then sit and eat dinner followed by sitting on the couch for some rest and relaxation.

This is a trend that sees Americans sitting for almost their entire day, week after week and year after year. The solution is to get up and get moving, even while you are at work.

Get a pedometer and try and hit at least 5,000 steps a day while at work. If you get a break, don’t sit for it, get up and move around. Eat your lunch outside and walk to where you will eat. Then, take the long way back to work in order to get more steps in. The point is to move around and not be stagnant. As the old saying goes, “A rolling stone gathers no moss.”

Too Much Stress

Work is almost always stressful in some way, shape, or form. As tough as it may be you need to try and stay calm while you work. Your body’s chemical balance can be thrown all out of whack with too much stress, which can lead to your body not working the way it should.

It is important to keep track of just how stressed out you are while you are at work. Your stress levels will often dictate how you act and if you are down then you are far more likely to eat the wrong things and do the wrong thing, which will all lead to weight gain, especially in a body that is already acting out of sorts due to the amount of stress you place on it. The bottom line is, you have to learn to relax.